1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of folding pallet supports, and more particularly to the method of forming pallet supports of a pallet with the features of a simple structure, a low cost, an easy assembling process, a strong strength and a large bearing capacity.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, pallets are made of wood, plastic or metal, but wooden pallets deteriorate naturally after a long time of use and have the issue of quarantine pests and diseases, and plastic pallets manufactured by injection molding require a mold and incur a higher manufacturing cost. In addition, the plastic pallets may be cracked or broken easily when carrying heavy loads and create an environmental protection problem since plastic cannot be degenerated easily. Although metal pallets have a secured solid structure capable of carrying goods of a heavy load, the metal pallets are expensive, heavy, and inconvenient for both storage and transportation. Therefore, paper pallets become a popular trend for carrying and transporting goods, and related designers and manufacturers design and develop various different paper pallet structures.
In general, a paper pallet support is made of a cardboard material and formed by folding a cardboard integrally. In the method of folding the paper pallet support, both sides of the cardboard material are folded toward the center of the cardboard material, and the centerline of the cardboard material is used as a reference to fold the whole piece of cardboard material in half. Now, an end of the cardboard is bent towards both sides to form a T-shape cross-sectional structure with a thickened top, so as to provide a stable supporting structure.
Although the conventional method of folding paper pallet supports can fold a paper pallet support by using a single cardboard to save the adhesion process, the folding method simply folds the single cardboard into a support 5 of a T-shape cross-sectional structure with a thickened top as shown in FIG. 2, and cannot be folded into an I-shape cross-sectional structure with thickened top and bottom. Obviously, the strength at the thickened portion of the top 51 of the T-shape cross-sectional structure is sufficient, but the strength at the bottom 52 is insufficient. Therefore, the height of insert slots 521 formed at the bottom 52 and provided for inserting forklift arms of a forklift into the insert slots 521 respectively cannot be designed to meet the requirement due to the insufficient strength of the bottom 52. If the pallet is assembled into a meshed paper pallet, the two forklift arms may collide with sidewalls 522 of the bottom 52 easily since the height of the insert slots 521 at the bottom 52 is insufficient for passing the forklift arms. As a result, the sidewalls 522 are damaged and the whole pallet cannot be used anymore. In the conventional method of folding paper pallet supports, both sides of the cardboard material are folded towards the center of the cardboard material, so that the center of the bottom of the cardboard only has the downwardly folded portion with a single-side support to the cardboard, and the support is insufficient to carry a heaver load, and the pallet support may be deformed easily by heavy loads. Obviously, the prior art has the aforementioned drawbacks and requires improvements.